Relatively recently, people have been utilizing digital avatars to represent themselves in a computer-setting. Creation of a digital avatar is typically accomplished through utilization of online libraries of features, where a user can select from a plurality of different features to generate an avatar that is generally representative of the user. For instance, the user may select a certain head shape, a certain skin color, eyebrows of a predefined shape, etc. in connection with generating a virtualized representation of the user. This process is relatively time-consuming, and often results in creation of an avatar that is not representative of the actual appearance of the individual.
Systems have been developed to automatically generate virtualized three-dimensional representations of users. These systems, however, suffer from being inaccurate, complex, and/or expensive. For example, a system has been developed that uses a red-blue-green (RGB) video stream to generate a virtual three-dimensional model of a face of a user. The user is asked to rotate his or her head in front of a camera, and the virtual three-dimensional model of the face of the user is generated based upon the video. Such a system, however, suffers from relatively poor quality, in that it is unable to capture nuanced depths found in human faces.
Another exemplary system utilizes several laser measurement units in connection with obtaining a relatively dense cloud of points that is used in connection with generating a virtual three-dimensional representation of a face of a user. Laser measurement units, however, are relatively expensive. Accordingly, such a system is not suitable for use by ordinary consumers. Moreover, such a system is not readily ported to another location, and lacks underlying technology to allow the resulting point cloud to be transformed into an animatable avatar.